How many pairs of pants does the average person, worldwide, own? How many shirts? You know everybody doesn’t even have one pair of shoes. I just saw in a book in my son’s classroom a book about children from around the world (gotta love those DorlingKindersley photo books). One page I flipped to featured some children from the Amazon river, um area…(I know that’s thousands of square miles of area. That’s all I remember), and anyway this child and her sister had never owned a pair of shoes. Never mind that that lived in a block house that looks like it could be in East Texas, but the child didn’t wear shoes and had the toes to prove it. I digress: recall that my point was that some people have little, others just what they need, still others far too much, and then there’s Richard Branson.
My armoire, where jeans, sweaters, and handbags live
My closet. Eeek!
I have 30 pairs of shoes.
I have 14 hangbags.
I have 17 dresses.
I have 18 pairs of jeans, and 22 pairs of pants besides (most of the pants and a few of the pairs of jeans are strictly for work, and one of the pairs of jeans are some ultra-high waisted Levi’s that were my mom’s in the ’70’s. I do recycle–I have several pieces from my mom’s wayback wardrobe).
I have too many shirts to count, not counting a dozen shirts I only ever wear to work.
I have six or more jackets.
(And other people are cold).
I have 14 sweaters. One of which I justified buying by saying, “It will look good on me until I die, and it will still be in style!”
“Well honey, we’ll make sure and bury you in it!”
You might have to, actually. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Did you see all that stuff I have up there? Do I, could I possibly, need more?
Do you ever get a new pair of shoes, and take the lid off the box at home, and just get a big, healthy whiff of the glue? Those picnic shoes smelled like glue. Can’t be good for the people who make them…
When was the last time you bought an article of clothing that was made in this country? (Hipsters, you’re excused, ‘cause we know you have American Apparel where you live).
The clothes I buy aren’t made in this country, for the most part. After I get tired of them, some make the long journey back across the world, and others end up in a landfill or piled up in a dead end thrift shop or basement.
Are we so fickle and wasteful that we throw away things that were made from, or at the expense of, the planet’s tenuously balanced remaining natural resources, and that we treat our laboring counterpart on the other side of the world as though his work is without value long before it s capacity is exhausted? We do this for our amusement: we consume as a hobby. Maybe your thing isn’t clothes, but it’s well documented that Americans live in a disposable society. Remember “The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars”? Planned obsolescence.
I’ve been collecting clothes that I truly appreciate for some time now. About 80% of the garments I listed above are things I actually wear. I think I have enough. Let’s see if I actually need to purchase something. I think we can guess what the answer will be.
That, however, doesn’t answer the question of whether I will want something badly enough to buy it even though that would be quite a disappointing failure. What do you think?
Also, if you think I have a lot of clothes, count some of your own things. I think I’m pretty average, but then I don’t know that. How many pairs of shoes or jeans do you have?
Next: When do I shop? When do you?
